Leseprobe
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ATOMS AND PERSONS
Rodolfo Gambini, Jorge Pullin
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World Scientific Publishing Company 
Sozialwissenschaften, Recht, Wirtschaft / Arbeits-, Wirtschafts- und Industriesoziologie
Beschreibung
What is consciousness? Does free will exist?
There exists a widespread conviction that the recent scientific discoveries, especially those related to physics and biology, in particular in contemporary neurosciences, question the traditional attempts to give meaning to life and a basis for our moral compass. Current scientific thinking usually identifies the mind with the mere exchange of electrical signals among neurons. It claims that consciousness is an irrelevant epiphenomenon and that introspection is an unreliable instrument to achieve any form of knowledge. Also, that the physical universe is causally closed and therefore all that occurs only has physical causes and all kind of freedom is excluded. The problem of assigning meaning and purpose to our lives, to the essential conceptions of the value of human life and social justice, becomes practically insoluble if one accepts the predominant notions that supposedly stem from contemporary science. The clash between the scientific and humanistic conception of human beings seems to have no option but to abandon the latter.
The aim of this book is to show that, contrary to what is usually considered, current advances in science allow to re-evaluate the role of consciousness and human freedom without entering into contradiction with empirical evidence or scientific theories in place today. The book starts by analyzing the certainties provided by the scientific thought and philosophical reflection while discussing the role and content of physical theories, and in particular, quantum mechanics. It discusses in detail the nature of quantum objects and the role they may have in consciousness. In particular, it analyzes models that allow phenomena of quantum nature to manifest themselves in the brains of animals and humans, and account for many of the properties of consciousness. Finally, we analyze how self-conscious and free entities like persons emerge, making compatible the scientific view with a renewed and better supported way of perceiving people, their values and culture.
Contents:
- The Awakening of the Dogmatic Dream: The Quest for Certainties in Science and Philosophy
- The Nature of the Laws of Physics: Regularist Physicalism
- Basic Principles of Quantum Mechanics
- A First Approach to the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics
- Causal Closure and Strong Emergence in Quantum Mechanics
- The Measurement Problem: Decoherence and Some Interpretations that Admit an Ontology of Quantum Objects and Events
- Processes and Individuals
- Quantum Ontology and the First-Person Perspective
- Physical Requirements for Models of Consciousness
- The Role of Consciousness in Living Beings
- Free Will and the Quantum Consciousness
- Self-consciousness and Persons
- The Higher Activities of the Self: Cognition
- The Transcendence of the Self
- Persons and the Search for Transcendence
- Persons in a Physical World
Readership: People who are concerned about how to reconcile modern ideas of physics, chemistry, biology and medicine and philosophy concerning the human mind, consciousness, and other characteristics that make us human.
Key Features:
- The authors are experts in quantum physics
- The book presents a coherent picture that is well thought out and defended in scientific terms
